


I Can't

by melismatic



Series: Fairy Tale [1]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Dark, F/M, Hurt, Nightmares, Romance, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 19:46:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9563693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melismatic/pseuds/melismatic
Summary: Back on Earth with too much time to think, way too many nightmares about what, and too many what ifs. Raph realizes he's not okay and it's too much to forgive.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine! I do not own TMNT! 
> 
> So moving on, this is a Mona/Raph pairing. If you're looking for fluff, I don't think you'd enjoy this but then again you might just like it. I like to practice different styles of writing so this was new for me, but hopefully enjoyable. Any criticism is appreciated if constructive. Please comment and enjoy!

* * *

 

The first few months, he had been so busy being happy being home. He didn’t think of much else. He had hated space, but there was one good thing out there, and he just knew he’d see her again. Maybe it had been her smile or the way she said it that made him believe it.

But the main thing was he was home, and no one was ever going to take that from him again.

  *     -------------------------



More time passed, and things died down. The season had changed, and they were slowly getting back to normal. Getting back to things they knew and the world they thought they lost.

With everything happening Raph was slowly getting back to himself. It was getting a bit easier to watch his dad, and not see it anymore. Not see that moment where he lost his father, and it started to feel like it never happened, and he would sleep until he’d wake up screaming.

  *     ---------------------------



_It didn’t happen…_

He yawned. He nodded off. A few times he even fell asleep in a cereal bowl while ignoring the looks from his brothers. They’d ask, and he’d lie. He didn’t need, to tell the truth, because it didn’t happen. It never happened. Her betrayal didn’t work, and his family was safe.

And he already forgave her for it.

His dad was here and not going anywhere. He’d keep saying it, even as the days went on until he nodded off in mid-bow. Master Splinter ordered him to go to bed, only for him to lay there with his eyes snapping open with his heart racing.

He had only slept thirty minutes.

  *     --------------------



She came!

Raph couldn’t stop the grin that kept coming on his face. It had been a year but she came, he didn’t care about the rest. He could even deal with Mikey’s jokes…

Sorta…

It was hard to even try to catch his baby brother, and with the way Raph’s nights been going,  he’d been nothing less than sluggish. He had finally convinced himself, though, enough where he could sleep. He didn’t have to remind himself as much that it didn’t happen.

He’d no longer see his brothers reaching out to him before disappearing before his eyes. He’d no longer have to watch them die one by one.  Not at all…

And today was a good day.

Because she came and that's all that mattered.

As the night came, he looked in the mirror to see three turtles. Shells cracked open, in their own blood.

He screamed until he was awake...

  *     ---------------------------------



_Did she really come?_

She did come that month. Raph was sure of it. His brothers confirmed it, but it was getting hard to tell it apart. The parts where he was awake. The parts where he slept.

Because he was sure, it never happened. It didn’t happen. And Mona was sorry. He remembered her saying that. He told Casey that, he told Casey everything.

“Ain’t nothin’ happen…”

“What if it had worked….” Casey looked at him, and he wished he never said anything.

He wished he said nothing as that familiar grip on his heart every night came, and he started letting the words slip automatically.

“But it didn’t...it didn’t…”

  *     -------------------------------------



More months passed, he still hadn’t seen her. Hadn’t heard from her as he looked up at the sky, waiting and watching. He’d yawn and push that feeling down. He wouldn’t let it come. He couldn’t because it didn’t work…

_But she still did it…_

He tried to push that down to. That thought, that ugly thought that came with memories and prices where he’d end up alone. He pushed it down because in the end it didn’t matter and he forgave her.

She was his Mona. The one who wanted him. Him the freak.

_But still…_

That night she came…

And he yelled at her.

  *     ---------------------------------------------



Two years…

Raph guessed that’s how long it took even Brainiac to grow a pair and ask out April. It had been a long time coming, all of them could see it.

Even Casey…

He thought his best friend would say congrats. A heartfelt one and not that one that Raph knew was wrong, it was all wrong with the way Casey smiled too big and laughed too loud.  

Yet Don couldn’t see it.

April neither.

They were too busy looking at each other.

_I ever looked like that?_

Raph asked Casey that night on the roof of his apartment, but he didn’t ask about the red-haired girl in his room.

  *     -----------------------------------------



He was waiting again, outside in the cold. Ignoring his brother’s warnings, mainly Don’s. The season changed, and now it was winter. Snow falling and it was cold. It was supposed to be cold, and he knew it yet he just stared out and waited.

Either he’d fall asleep into nothing, or she’d come…

Leo had come up. Don’s pleas didn’t work the other days so now it was the leader’s turn to try.

“Raph, you can’t stay out here all night. Won’t you be happier inside?”

_Happy?_

He looked at his brother unsure how to answer that because he knew what happy was. He thought of Mikey, his little brother was happiness. And Raph was…

He kept looking at Leo waiting on the feeling to tell him because Mikey was happiness.

“Raph, I’m worried about you...”

“Yeah. I know…”

That one he could answer.

  *     ------------------------------



She showed up again.

He waited for the smile. The feeling he got from the first time Mona visited him, even as the sight of her made him want to spit.

_Why ya do it…_

He knew why. He knew why she did it. Or maybe he wonders why she comes at all. Does she know he’ll always wait?

He thinks of the kisses he’d seen Don give April.

The ones in movies.

In those videos that him and Casey would watch late at night.

Real kisses that made it all better.

_They all would be dead cuz of you..._

“Raphael, we already talked about this…”

He doesn’t even remember saying it out loud.

_We talked? Nah, we yelled..._

The thought wouldn’t go away, so he said again on purpose.

And they yelled again…

So, he kissed her.

He almost died.

  *     ------------------------



Don warned him not to try that again. Explaining how Mona secretes a toxin and how her mouth wasn’t made for kissing like that.

Raph already knew that. He’s the one that kissed her.

The lecture was over, so he sat on the couch. The same one with Mikey happily playing a video game. Mikey was happiness.

That hadn’t changed.

“Why ya smile so much.”

The question was out, and Mikey stared at him, head tilting before grinning wide with a shrug.

“I dunno, bro.”

“Ya gotta know somethin’ “

He had to because Mikey was happiness. Raph looked at his baby brother. An expression passed over his face. One he’d seen on all of them.

Worry…

“I know you don’t smile enough” Mikey’s voice was soft. “Not anymore at least. You get angry, real scary angry and then there’s nothing.”

“Nothing and angry, huh?”

Mikey was happiness. He’d always been happiness.

He could handle being nothing.

  *     -------------------------------------



_“You get angry, real scary angry….”_

The words repeated from months ago, as he saw the blood on his hands and looked to see his brothers staring at him. He took a step towards them and April took a step back, hiding behind Don, her eyes went from him to what was left on the ground.

“Come on, bro…” Casey’s words were quiet as he approached Raph, grabbing hold of him as Raph was led away.

He barely remembered getting home. Or the bed.

Casey cleaned him up.

His hands were blood free Casey said...

  *     -----------------------------------------



She came again….

And he yelled…

He screamed…

And then she turned to leave.

And he saw red…

There were moans.

There were screams…

Next, he felt like he was choking.

Laying there on the floor as he finally saw his brothers. They stared at him, then at the salamandrian on the floor, naked and covered with marks before Don finally moved.

“Help me get him to the medical room!”

He tried breathing, his hands shaking as he brought them to his face. He stared at them.

He thought Casey said they were blood-free.

  *     ----------------------------



“Here.”

Medicine was thrown at him along with medicinal toothpicks. He watched his little brother glare. Don’s hands had curled into fists and Raph could hear the breathing even as he silently picked up the toothpicks.

“This is...this is enough Raph!” Don was yelling, grabbing the medicine back. “Just stop seeing her! Stop waiting on her! Stop touching her! Stop trying to do that with her!”

“Ya mean sex?”

Don glared again yet Raph just stared at him as he watched the taller turtle stand. Stand and pace.

“She’s not even made for that! Newts don’t have relations!”

Raph shrugged, getting up and going out the door as he caught the look on Don’s face and watched his brother sink into the chair with his hands to his face.

April came later that day.

That night so did Mona.

Raph woke up in the medical room bed, again. There was medicine beside him, but no Don.

  *     -------------------------------



Only 5 years and they found the real Irma.

She had brown hair, glasses, and sometimes would wear her hair in some weird ponytail. She was already all over Casey. Don gave a warning about trauma and codependency, yet Raph had stopped listening.

That night Raph visited his best friend, it was brown hair instead of the usual red in that bed.

  *     --------------------------------



Raph went into the kitchen, voices went quiet, and he looked around the table. His dad and brothers had stared at him.

He watched Master Splinter gesture to an empty seat.

“My son, please sit…”

Raph looked more, staring until he sat and he watched his dad sit back down. There was gray in areas. Splinter's eyes dull, yet bloodshot as he took Raph’s hands staring into his eyes.

_He got that old inna few years?_

He didn’t have long to wonder, they started with small talk. Then his dad pleading. His brothers begging.

Then Mikey cried.

“You need to let this relationship go, Raphael, please?” Splinter was asking again, and Raph shook his head.

“I love her…”  He moved to get up, furry fingers slipping from his hand. They shook, and it looked like his dad had aged a few more years.

“This is going to end up killing you!” Leo yelled

“Not possible” Raph replied.

He was sure you couldn’t kill what’s already dead.

  *     -----------------



Sometimes she’d come, and his family would come when they heard the screams. Slowly they stopped coming. Slowly they stopped asking. They stopped begging and pleading with him.

And he’d hold her against him in an empty room.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed it. This will be the first part of a darker series I plan on trying to do.


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